Stelephant Colbert

Stelephant Colbert started out as a mere pup in a small harem of Northern Elephant Seals located at Año Nuevo State Reserve. He has since grown into one of the most famous elephant seals ever, even appearing on the much popular . Around 8 years old, Stelephant is a 4,500-pound beast. Not known as the pretty-boy, he gets by on his aggressiveness and determination to get as close to females as possible. With his proboscis, or nose, high in the air, almost any male is turned away unless they wish to fight. These fights aren’t known to last for long however because Stelephant is a seasoned fighter and knows how to win. He is what every male elephant seal strives to be, huge, strong, and proud.
Early years
When Stelephant Colbert was weaned, he spent the next few weeks on the beach waiting for the courage to go and join the adult seals out in the Northern Pacific Ocean. He returned the next year to the same exact beach on the California Coast as a yearling, where he was exiled to the outskirts of the harems with all the other yearlings. The next few years were spent building muscle and growing large in order to be able to compete with the larger males. During his 3rd to 5th year, Stelephant practiced his fighting skills with other young males in order to build strength, and while he did compete with the adults, he wasn’t much competition and spent most of his days far away from females. When he was around 7 years old years old and his proboscis had finally grown in, he was finally ready to compete with the adult males for the alpha position.
Tagging
Stelephant is part of a wider tagging program started by Tagging Of Pacific Predators, or TOPP.org. The small tags collect location, time, depth, light level, salinity, and temperature data. Elephant seals are incredible divers and allow scientists to learn about their unique behavior and the environment they live in.
Since the time depth recorder, many more advancements in tags have been made including: profiling ocean temperatures, collecting acoustic data or sounds, using light to figure out animal location, and using electronics to measure physiological data. Elephant seals are prime candidates for tagging because of the fact that they tend to return to the same beach every year to breed, yielding high tag recovery. They also can gather immense amounts of information because they can swim for thousands of miles. Stelephant himself has been involved with the University of California, Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab researchers and was tagged last spring in order to track his foraging habits while swimming and diving off the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
Elephant Seal Homecoming Days
Elephant Seal Homecoming Days was started by TOPP in 2008 for the months that the Northern Elephant Seals return to Año Nuevo State Reserve during the breeding season. TOPP chose10 tagged seals to become spokes-seals for the public. Thus allowing the TOPP.org community to learn what it's like to be one of the biggest seals, and predators, in the world.
Stelephant was issued his own Facebook were people can keep track of his whereabouts and his status updates. He is the most talked about seal in the program in that he was featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the Associated Press, and many additional media organizations.. The biggest media event being when Steven Colbert of The Colbert Report, whom Stelephant is named after, spoke of his seal on his show. Stelephant, the seal, was featured in one of The Colbert Report episodes, creating a media buzz. Since then, Stelephant’s fan based has skyrocketed bringing attention to TOPP and the UCSC Long Marine Lab who Stelephant is associated with. Stelephant has enabled TOPP to engage the public in learning about Northern elephant seals, marine science, and marine conservation.
Current
Stelephant is now an Alpha male at Ano Nuevo State Reserve and will soon return to the Ocean to forage once again. Soon Stelephant featured on Oceans Google Earth, which allows the user to explore the oceans. His tags were recovered in January and he was not tagged again.

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